The Kelley plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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Showers likely
−7° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 3° in 2005.
Kelley’s center stands about 1,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 960 ft to 1,050 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lower Cherokee Group and Raccoon Creek Group (shale, sandstone, siltstone), from the Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 54×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 23 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Kelley reaches the Gulf of America by way of Walnut Creek, the South Skunk, the Skunk and the Mississippi: about 1,590 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Kelley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kelley has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Kelley normally reaches 48° and falls to 27°. The record high is 74°, in 2025; the record low 9°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.15 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Ames Municipal Airport, 4 miles northeast, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
